Orange roughy ecolabel to assist exports

Sealord has
welcomed the next step in the journey to have New Zealand
orange roughy globally recognised as a sustainable seafood
choice.

Three of the main orange roughy fisheries have
been submitted for assessment by the Marine
Stewardship Council to verify if they can carry the
world’s best known marine ecolabel.

New Zealand’s
quota management system has allowed industry and government
to work together to achieve this and Sealord Fishing General
Manager, Doug Paulin, says that MSC certification will
provide an additional assurance to customers.
“Globally, New Zealand seafood has a great reputation and
Sealord customers will be supportive of this new measure to
show retailers and customers alike orange roughy is a
sustainable choice,” said Paulin.More than a decade of
work has been done to improve stocks, including closures and
conservative fishing levels that see at least 95 of every
100 adult orange roughy being left in the
ocean.

Scientific surveys now show New Zealand orange
roughy stocks are healthy, with more than 156 million adult
fish in our waters and even greater numbers of young,
juvenile fish.As the largest quota holder of orange
roughy, Sealord has been at the forefront of investing in
science and research to make sure the orange roughy
fisheries are understood.

This includes the first
investment in the world by a private fishing company in a
multi-frequency Acoustic Optical System (AOS) – deep
sea technology that allows scientists to use acoustics
(sound) at different frequencies, and optics (visuals) to
better understand fish and the marine environment.

The
equipment has provided some never before seen footage of orange roughy at depths of
more than 1000m and better, more accurate information about
the species.“Sealord isn’t stopping here, we are now
working on ways to have real-time video footage of the nets
as they fish to improve accuracy and further minimise
impacts trawling has on the marine environment,” said
Paulin.

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